Orang Pendek Project – 7/9/13

A day or two before July 9, 2013, a man named Pak Jintan observed an orang pendek from his farm near Hulu Batang Barau. The creature was walking on two legs along the edge of his farm near the jungle around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. He described it has being approximately one meter tall (39 inches), yet having a large body. This can be interpreted as meaning very massive for its size. The creature’s fur was described as grey and long. After the creature disappeared into the forest, Pak Jintan went to where he saw the creature and found at least one footprint (it is not known how may prints were observed since only one was photographed).

One of my Sumatran contacts arrived at the location on July 9, 2013. He photographed one footprint in the ground with a scale item. Unfortunately, the tape measure covers part of the print, but a lot of detail still shows (I’m working with the Sumatrans on how to better document the footprints both before and after casting, but due to language and technological issues, this is rather slow-going).

My tracker cast the footprint, and it was later shipped to me in the United States. When I opened the package, I found the cast in many pieces, apparently having broken at some point in the shipping process. I am still slowly reassembling the cast, but it is an agonizingly slow process due to the sheer number of small pieces, and my aversion for jigsaw puzzles. (This process has, however, given me a new appreciation for paleontologists who routinely have to put broken fossils together from literally hundreds of small bits and pieces.) If I ever get the cast totally reassembled, I will add the photograph to this page.